ChiefsPlanet - Report: Union targets Sept. 16 as strike date

I think it would be difficult for baseball in KC to recover from a strike. We all saw the effect that had on attendance after '94. One thing is for sure, if they do strike, they'd better fix the game financially. If they strike and come back basically status quo, MLB will be in a world of hurt.

Monday, July 22

Report: Union targets Sept. 16 as strike date

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ESPN.com news services

The Major League Baseball Players Association has tentatively targeted Sept. 16 as a strike date, the Los Angeles Times reported on Monday.

Sources told the newspaper that union officials, concerned that the owners will implement a new system after the World Series, have decided to tell the players to stop working with two weeks left in the regular season if a settlement is not reached.

According to the sources, the union had several reasons for picking the Sept. 16th date. The union apparently decided it would be a public-relations nightmare to go on strike before Sept. 11. Also, a Sept. 16 date would mean that the players would miss just one paycheck, and it would hit the owners hard by wiping out two weeks of attendance in the home stretch of the pennant race.

However, Gene Orza, second in command of the union, downplayed Sept. 16th as the target day for a strike and disputed parts of the Times report. Orza told ESPN's Karl Ravech on Monday that there was no more significance to Sept. 16th as a strike date than any other date. He said the players had never before struck on the first and 15th of a month after receiving their paychecks (they get paid on the first and 15th of the month). And he said that the players will get paid for every day they work on the first and 15th of the month whether they work the entire pay period or part of a pay period.

The union is reportedly frustrated that more progress has not been made in such issues as revenue sharing. On Friday negotiators, joined by eight players from the Boston Red Sox, had what both sides called a productive session in New York, and agreed that they were not that far apart on the amount of money they want to divide unequally among clubs from baseball's national broadcasting and licensing contracts.

They did not discuss locally generated revenue or management's desire for a luxury tax on high-payroll teams, two bigger points of contention in the talks for a labor deal to replace the contract that expired Nov. 7.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.